QoE-based radio resource allocation in LTE femtocell considering transport limitations

In this paper, we study the QoE-based resource allocation problem for downlink direction in LTE femtocells, considering the transport network limitation. We first formulate the problem as a convex optimization problem, which maximizes the aggregated QoE of all users and solve it using Lagrangian relaxation method. This approach provides an ideal resource allocation solution but it is not practical, because the allocated bandwidth in the model is assumed to be a real value, while in practice, only an integer amount of Physical Resource Blocks (PRBs) can be assigned to a user. However, it is considered as a benchmark for our new developed algorithm. Then we propose an efficient heuristic, which can be applied in real LTE systems. The heuristic is mathematically proven to provide an optimal solution in case there is no limitation in the transport network. In case of transport network limitation, the simulation results show that it gives almost identical performance (ca. 1%) as the optimal solution in the investigated scenario.